Zaeed: 5 Men and a Cruiser
by arealfishoutofwater
Summary: The Turian freighter 'The Varikan' gone mysteriously rouge. Now, rather than risk an incident the Turians are hiring five men to take it out, they call it a suicide mission, zero percent chance of survival, but they've never met Zaeed Massani...
1. Bring Me The Best

**You know that story Zaeed tells Shepard about? His first suicide mission? Leading a team of five men to destroy a Turian Frigate? This is the story behind that. This is a very short beginning, but it is just the prologue so expect the next to be longer.**

**Find Me the Best**

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Air hissed as pressure was released and a door opened. A raptor-like Turian dressed in dark red battle armor briskly walked through it, taking very heatedly with three or four of his crew aboard the Turian Capital ship _Aide. _The small group continued down a hallway and through several more doors before the one in red stopped, waved away his compatriots and passed through another doorway. Inside this room were several sitting Turians, a conference table, and a window looking out into the stars. The red armored one walked to the head of the table, placed his hands on the edges and bowed his head in thought for a moment. He then looked up only enough to barely see his eyes and, in a voice quiet and enraged he stated "Alright, somebody had better tell me the full situation again, from the top." The Turian to his right rose.

"Admiral, the Freighter _Varikan _was assigned to investigate an enigmatic radio signal the STG picked up a few weeks ago in the Terminus systems. The crew are three Cabal squads plus the pilot. We lost radio contact with them when they neared Illos, we sent another freighter, _Harama's Hope_ to investigate, but reported being attacked by the _Varikan _roughly 20 ly from Virmire, contact was lost ten minutes after transmission, they are presumed dead. It is firmly believed that the crew of the _Varikan _have gone rouge. We have tracked them and their fight pattern and have deduced that they are heading for Illos again, for who knows what purposes. They are a perceived threat and must be dealt with-"

"We don't know that for sure! All the evidence is circumstantial!" Yelled out another, slamming his fist down.

"That would be enough Captain, let him finish." Said the Admiral.

"They must be dealt with swiftly, decisively, and without mercy. Or possible attacks could occur. Perhaps even a war with the Terminus systems, if they have friends."

"Hm, what are our chances of getting a small demolitions team on board?"

"Not very high, but even lower for mission completion, as I said _three Cabal squads_, it would be a suicide mission. Besides, the Terminus systems already are on the verge of attacking us, sending a professional squad could start an all out war."

"So, Citadel and Alliance military are out of the question, what about mercs?"

"Possible, but they would have to be damn good mercs, no small time petty thief bounty hunters from Citadel space. That's for sure."

"You would have us hire Terminus System Mercenaries?"

"It's a lawless place sir, they have more dangerous missions to complete than catching bail jumpers."

"Admiral, we can't just blow up our own men! This could be a horrible misunderstanding!" The Captain rose again.

"We all know that your son is one of these traitors Captain, but we can't show mercy because of blood. This may not even be the same man you knew." The Captain tried to retaliate, but eventually just sat back down and cried silently.

"If we're going to be hiring terminus mercs, I want the best, and I want them _now._" The Admiral finished, and walked out the door.

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**Index**

**Ly: Light Year(s)**

**STG: Salarian Special Tasks Group  
**


	2. A Smooth Landing

**Sorry it's so short again, but this was just such a great place to have a cliffhanger. The next chapter will probably be up by tomorrow. But today we witness the return of a character we knew so little about, who died before we got to know him, or see him in battle. I also think its funny how the last 1/2 sounds like the beginning of a horror movie/book.  
**

**Disclaimer Sadly, I don't own Mass effect, the characters, or a good computer. I only own this story and the characters I've made up.**

**A Smooth Landing  
**

The air made a whooshing sound as the cargo bay door opened and the room depressurized. Two Turians with glowing helmets stood near the exit, shouting over the roar of the wind outside.

"He should be wrapping up a big job now so just go in, but watch your head or he'll shoot it off. He's been under fire for three days."

"What's he doing here?"

"We think he was hired to find out why the colonists and guards of the human colony Peralta have gone missing, but that's all we know. This merc is the best, or so we've heard, he's so expensive people only hire him out for the most dangerous of missions, you could be walking into your death Nihlus."

"I will be fine, Captain."

"I don't want you to do fine, I want this mission to go _perfect_ remember, rounding up this suicide squad is your final chance to get into the spectres. I don't want you to loose you chance because of something like last time."

"I know Captain, and I intend to make you proud."

"You'd better, I need you in the spectres, all the other Captains have something to brag about. I'm hoping to shut them up. Now GO!" The Captain shoved Nihlus out of the cargo bay and into the air. For a moment Nihlus experienced vertigo, followed by an all too instinctual urge to panic about falling from so high. He flipped himself over, preparing to deploy the parachute built into his armor.

The ground rushed forward, when Nihlus calculated thirty seconds to impact he pressed the button located on the wrist of his battle armor. A huge parachute exploded from within the back of his suit, creating a loud snapping noise when it caught the wind. Nihlus hit the ground, rolled to remove momentum and pressed the wrist button again. The chute was returned to the compartment on his back through a pulley system designed to reel in the wires and prepare the chute for another jump.

Taking a few steps onto the top of a small hill, Nihlus took in his surroundings. This planet did indeed look like an ideal colony world for humans. Miles and miles of green, grassy hills stretched before him. Small close-knit groups tall leafy of trees stood, rooted to the ground in random places. The wind blew around him gently under a cool sun and a light blue sky. Only one thing stood out, the small, five or six building colony about two miles away from him. It was this Nihlus headed towards.

Nihlus had been walking a few minutes when he came across something peculiar. He crouched down to have a look at it. From a distance, it had looked like an oddly shaped rock, up close however, he saw it had a definite form. He picked it up and looked it over, then realizing what it was, he suddenly stood up, alert for danger. For what he held in his hand was no rock, but a bleached white human skull.

There he stood, looking, listening, waiting for some kind of warning. He couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had killed this human wasn't far. Nihlus decided that he couldn't just stand around forever, he had to get moving. He tossed the skull aside and kept walking. The skull rolled around behind him and sunk in the grass near the trees. Slowly, roots rose and pulled the polished white bone underground with them.

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**Index**

**Ly: Light Year(s)**

**STG: Salarian Special Tasks Group**

**Spectres: Special Tactics and Reconnosaince members. The Navy SEALs of the citadel. (For non-Americans, Navy SEALs (SEa Air Land) are the most elite of American Special ops, making them some of the most elite in the world.)  
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	3. Invading A Shopping Center

**Okay, usually I don't care about reviews, but I don't even have _one _so right now it seems as if no one is reading this. So if I don't have confirmation that at least_ one_ person is reading this, I'm gonna stop writing it. Because if no one is reading this, I'm wasting my time.  
**

**Disclaimer Sadly, I don't own Mass effect, the characters, or a good computer. I only own this story and the characters I've made up.**

**Invading A Shopping Center  
**

Nihlus approached the small colony. A few two story buildings, a hospital, a store, and he guessed twenty houses. He had to say, the place looked a lot smaller from the hill. Nihlus had never been to a human colony, not that he'd ever _want _to. The humans still held a grudge over the relay 3-14 incident. He wasn't surprised though, many humans had died because of a misunderstanding, and from what he'd seen, humans were generally forgiving, but when indignant, can hold grudges for generations.

Nihlus decided that had the humans been here, the colony would have been bustling with life, like all human places. The calm, the eerie quiet, it was starting to make him nervous. He had once heard the human term 'ghost town' used before. While he was never told exactly what ghosts are, a human had once tried to explain to him, but failed to make sense, he felt that this colony would fit the description.

His thoughts were halted when he heard a loud crash and multiple gunshots. Whipping out his shotgun, he crouched low to the ground, prepared for an attack. After a moment Nihlus rose, and carefully made his way into the store.

The store was rather large for a colony this size. What humans called a department store he assumed. Large isles of goods ran front to back. A few checkout computers laid in rows near the exit, where ironically, Nihlus had entered. Slipping between these he slowly had his way towards the area he'd heard the gunshots come from. He froze when he heard a voice. "Who the _fuck_ stacks shit up against a goddamn door!" Nihlus stepped forward, a human came into view, digging himself out of a pile of hundreds of cans, some of which had bullet holes in them.

"Zaeed Massani, I presume?" The human looked up, a large scar looped across his cheek and one of his eyes was colored different than the other. He was wearing yellow armor that had a silvery-gray down the middle. A large shoulder harness reached over his right shoulder, next to a Blue Suns merc group tattoo.

"Who wants to know?" The human talked different than most of his kind, Nihlus noted. Then again, he _had_ noticed that some humans speak different from different regions. Accents the humans called them, ridiculous is what Nihlus called it.

"Nihlus Kryik of the turian military. You signed a contract to take down a rouge ship, remember?"

"I remember, I'm not fucking stupid. I also remember saying come get me when I'm _done._" Zaeed said, annoyed as he picked himself up.

"We thought you would be finished by know, you said eight hours on this mission."

"I realize that! Usually a missing colony is just because of bandits, something really _fucked _is going on here."

"I saw. People really _are _missing."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Zaeed stated as he picked up his assault rifle and began walking. Nihlus followed suit. "Alliance brass did their best to fill me in on the situation, but I still haven't found one goddamn clue. Not yet at least.

"And the cans?" Nihlus questioned.

"Thought I heard something, opened up the door and faced an avalanche of beans. Either somebody here was too stupid to realize doors need to be clear, or they were barricading it."

"So if somebody could have barricaded it, why are we walking _away _from it?"

"The cans were already falling when I opened the door, the room was a delivery exit hallway. We're going to go around and see what we can see."

"Why not just go through the hall?"

"Think about it, the only times you'd barricade a damn door are when you don't want someone getting something, or you don't want someone getting _you_, walking through a hallway of improvised traps isn't exactly how I'd like to spend my day if I can help it. And I _can_." He explained annoyed as he hopped up the curb and walked around the corner of the store. When they reached two gray double doors, Zaeed stopped and turned to his turian shadow. "It'll be tight quarters, I'll go in first. You watch my back, wait ten seconds the follow me." Nihlus didn't like taking orders from a human mercenary, but he nodded his agreement. Zaeed was right, after all.

Zaeed creaked open a door and peeked in, then opened it full swing and jammed it with an old thermal clip, then entered. Nihlus leaned back against the wall and stared at the sky for a moment. Twilight was beautiful in this planets atmosphere. A deep reddish-orange covered the sky, only interrupted by the bright light of the system's yellow sun in the hills. For some unknown reason, it gave him an uneasy feeling. "Hey, get in here!" Zaeed called out. The Turian tore his eyes from the sunset, readied his rifle and slowly stepped into the darkness.

Apart from the light of the sun shining dully through the doorway, the only light in the small corridor was coming from the beams on their rifles. Nihlus looked around, the halls looked freshly cleaned, as if whatever happened, occurred when the janitor was finished. The only mess to be seen while they walked was the one that came from the barricaded door. It appeared that the person had little agility, as they'd knocked over everything as they'd run by. Zaeed turned to continue down the hall, but was stopped by Nihlus. He pointed at the floor near the barricade. "Look..." At a roving first glance it appeared there was nothing there, but a more in depth look revealed much, much dirt and scattered leaves trailing down the hall. "It goes down there." He pointed.

"I was already heading that way." said an annoyed Zaeed, as he resumed moving. To this, the Turian just shrugged and followed.

The duo followed the trail down a few halls and out into an open delivery area, complete with a delivery ship. An unmanned forklift stood on its two right wheels, crate smashed, rammed into the concrete wall. The floor was caked in dirt and grime, a few trampled leaves lay scattered here and about. "What happened here?" Nihlus thought aloud.

"I'm more interested in that forklift." Zaeed said, and walked off to examine it. Nihlus followed suit, uneasiness creeping back. The forklift appeared to have been abandoned after its crashing, as it was still running. He crouched down to inspect the tire tracks when a loud yell-followed by multiple bullet shots-pulled him back to reality. The Turian looked up, rifle trained on the disturbance. What he saw nearly made him burst out laughing.

Zaeed stood in a wide stance, rifle in one hand, hand reached over his shoulder, attempting to shake off the Volus who'd hitched a ride on his back and was now attempting to beat him to death with a roll of Brawny. Zaeed-still wriggling- finally jumped backwards off the loading dock, landing on his back, knocking the wind out of his estranged attacker. He rolled over and stood up, placing his boot on the alien's small throat. He dropped the barrel of the rifle onto its head. The Volus just wriggled around, shrieking with laughter.

Nihlus dropped off the platform and walked over to them. Wondering why a Volus, from a generally non-violent race, would just attack them. "Looks like we've got us a witness." Zaeed said, smiling almost evilly.

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**Codex**

**Ly: Light Year(s)**

**STG: Salarian Special Tasks Group**

**Spectres: Special Tactics and Reconnosaince members. The Navy SEALs of the citadel. (For non-Americans, Navy SEALs (SEa Air Land) are the most elite of American Special ops, making them some of the most elite in the world.)  
**


	4. Insane Volus Fun Time

**And after a VERY long unexplainable hiatus, he returns. I'm very sorry to the very few people who actually CARED and wanted to read further, but the truth is, I just got lazy, then forgot about this completely. But, I'm back, and I intend to finish this time. Zaeed's story of the Varikan is too good not to be told. So without further adieu, ON WITH THE STORY!**

**Insane Volus fun time**

The crazy Volus continued his shrieks, stopping only to suck in air a few times. Eventually the need for air had outweighed the need to scream and the fat little creature passed out, releasing a few fits of demented giggling every so often. Zaeed groaned and let himself fall back on the loading dock, he'd been waiting for the Volus to wake up for an hour now.

Nihlus was cleaning his assault rifle, the cleaning rod made a long scratching sound as it drove back and forth, over and over. Concentrating so hard on his task was he, that he failed to catch the human's glare. "That's starting to get on my nerves, Turian." Nihlus didn't catch this, all his attention was focused on maintaining the quality of his rifle. If he wanted to be a Spectre, he had to have clean and reliable weapons. Fortunately, Zaeed didn't press the issue, he simply hopped down from his perch and tapped the Volus's head with his foot. When there was no response, he grunted acknowledgment. "I'm gonna look around some more, let me know when our friend comes to." There was no indication that the alien had herd him, but the merc walked off anyway.

There was only three other entrances besides the one the duo had came through earlier, two of them were bay doors for ships carrying supplies to drop off goods, the latter was simply a door on the wall with the crashed fork lift. Zaeed made his way past the sole cruiser in the area and headed for it, nearly slipping on a mess of wet leaves by the threshold. The hall the door had uncovered was pitch dark, aside from standard emergency lighting, and so quiet Zaeed could hear his own heartbeat. He raised his assault rifle in preparation, silence _that _absolute wasn't natural, of course, nether were ghost towns.

_ Better to be over-prepared than dead. _Zaeed thought to himself. A certain moment in his history played out in his mind, confirming this line of thought. _Should have seen it coming._ The merc concluded, touching his marred countenance.

He took a cautious step forward, there was a sound of a heavily armored boot coming down on a thinly carpeted floor. A light blinked. He didn't like this job, he decided as he made his way though the dark. It was too strange, he was used to missions with clear and present danger. He'd been searching up and down this colony for dozens of local hours. The planet was huge, the days so long that although he hadn't yet weathered a night on it, almost two Galactic Standard Days had passed. The danger was there; he could feel it swirling around in the air, choking him with its intoxicating smell, but it was stale, like a sleeping giant. Zaeed wasn't sure when the alarm would go off, it was making him paranoid.

Halfway down the hallway Zaeed encountered an anomaly. A door was partially opened swinging gently to and fro, as if some mysterious breeze was affecting it. The merc sneaked up to it, preparing himself, for what; he didn't know. But his instincts were now screaming; telling him not to open the door. But the merc had a job to do, so he ignored them and gently pushed the door open.

All his years of training could never have prepared him for the scene beyond...

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Nihlus paused, there it was again; the noise. It sounded like a cough. There it was again! He pulled the cleaning rod out of his rifle and steadied himself. All of a sudden the silence gave way to a cacophony of hacking, coughing and spewing as the Volus regained consciousness. The Turian set his rifle down and ran over to help the poor bastard.

Once Nihlus had steadied his new informant, he stepped back. "Are you okay? What's your name?"

This seemed to be the wrong thing to do, as the Volus suddenly lurched back, falling over some spare parts and into a puddle of grease, shrieking all the way. "No hurt! -Ah-Help! No, NO!" He paused for breath. Giggling, he started back up again. "Stay away! Not hurt poor Jamile!"

Nihlus was unsure of what to do. Turians never exhibited such behavior, they were too well disciplined. Nevertheless, he had to try and glean some information from this clearly unstable being.

"Calm down! Shh-tell me what happened. Uh, Jamile."

Jamile the Volus was busy picking himself up, but giggled in reply. Nihlus sighed, and repeated himself as the Volus quickly reclaimed his paper towels, clutching them for dear life. "Jamile, my name is Nihlus, of the Turian ship _Belkin_ can you tell me what happened hear?"

For a moment, it appeared that Jamile wouldn't answer him. But the Volus breathed in, and clutched his Brawny even tighter. "Horrible! Claws! Fangs! Blood!-NO! Haran! STOP!" The Volus broke down, his giggles turned erratic and eventually hysteric.

Nihlus new he was close, just a little more prodding would solve this mystery. "Jamile, who did this, can you tell me that?"

Instead, Jamile just stopped shrieking. A loud crash was heard followed by the sound of wood splintering. The Volus froze and spoke calmly for the first time that day. "They come." He whispered.

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**Yes, it's short, I know. But it was such a great place to hang the story. Next chapter will be longer though, so don't worry!**


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